Amanda Palmer
Amanda MacKinnon Palmer (born April 30, 1976) is a performer most noted for being the lead singer, pianist, and lyricist/composer of the "Brechtian Punk Cabaret" duo The Dresden Dolls. Biography Palmer grew up in Lexington, Massachusetts. She attended Lexington High School, where she was heavily involved in the drama department, and received her B.A. from Wesleyan University. She worked for some time at an ice cream shop in Cambridge, Massachusetts called Toscanini's. She staged performances based on work by the Legendary Pink Dots, an early influence, and was involved in the Legendary Pink Dots electronic mailing list, Cloud Zero. She then formed the Shadowbox Collective, devoted to putting on theatrical shows (such as the 2002 play, Hotel Blanc''Boston Phoenix'' [http://www.bostonphoenix.com/boston/music/live/documents/02157185.htm review of Hotel Blanc], which she directed) and street theatre, and busked as a living statue called "The Eight Foot Bride". Despite the fact that Palmer never learned to read music (though she briefly took lessons at two different times), she started a solo effort, appropriately named "Amanda Palmer and the Void" The Phoenix Media/Communications Group Dresden Dolls take the ART Solo career Palmer's solo album, Who Killed Amanda Palmer, was released on 16 September 2008.fish/people/belly The Dresden Dolls DiaryBen Folds produced and also played on the album.spin.com Dresden Doll Preps Solo Debuthere to dispel. The title is a play on an expression used by fans during Twin Peaks' original run, "Who killed Laura Palmer?" A companion book was released with the album featuring pictures of Amanda looking as if she were murdered with accompanying writing by Neil Gaiman. In July 2007, Amanda played three sold out shows (Boston, Hoboken, and NYC) in rare "with band" performances. Her backing band was Boston alternative rock group Aberdeen City, who also opened along with Dixie Dirt. In August 2007, Amanda traveled to perform in the Spiegeltent and other venues at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival in Scotland, and also performed on BBC 2's The Edinburgh Show. She collaborated with Australian theater company, "The Danger Ensemble"; both again appeared at the Spiegeltent in Melbourne and at other venues around Australia in December 2007. In September 2007 Amanda collaborated with Jason Webley to release Evelyn Evelyn's debut EP "Elephant Elephant" via Jason's Eleven Records. In June 2008, Amanda established her solo career with two well-received performances with the Boston Pops. In Autumn 2008, she toured Europe with Jason Webley, Zoe Keating and The Danger Ensemble, performing songs mostly from her debut solo album. She did most of the shows with a broken foot she had sustained in Ireland when a car – driving on the left side of the road, as cars in Ireland do – ran over her foot as she stepped out into a street. She has amassed an online following of over 68,000 people. This friend count is as of the access date, and is the number of distinct myspace accounts that have asked for regular bulletins from the artist. Personal life Amanda's residence in Boston, the Cloud Club, was the subject of a 2006 Documentary on the Boston Channel website as well as YouTube. Amanda practices meditation and has written an article Melody vs. Meditation, for the Buddhist Publication Shambhala Sun on the struggle between being a songwriter and being able to clear one's mind in order to meditate. She identifies as bisexual. "I'm bisexual, but it's not the sort of thing I spent a lot of time thinking about," Palmer said. "I've slept with girls; I've slept with guys, so I guess that's what they call it! I'm not anti trying to use language to simplify our lives." "I actually tend to like really femmey girls," Palmer said. "You can deconstruct this with armchair psychology and really nail me, but I like girls about my body type and about my mix of masculine and feminine." Awards and honors * 2008 – #6 on the Best Solo artist list in the the Guardian's Readers' Poll of 2008 * 2007 – placed #6 on Spinner.com's Women Who Rock Right Now. * 2006 – the Boston Globe named her the most stylish woman in Boston. * 2006 – listed in Blender Magazine's hottest women of rock. * 2005 – won Best Female Vocalist in the WFNX/Boston Phoenix Best Music Poll. References [[Category:Musicians] Category:The Dresden Dolls Members Category:Pianists Category:Ukulele Players Category:Vocalists Category:LGBT People